Lola Rennt (Run Lola Run)

For the film this session, we watched the German thriller Run Lola Run. Which follows a woman needing to obtain 100,000 marks in 20 minutes to save her boyfriend's life. The film being split into 3 possible outcomes. The film reminded of another film that had various outcomes branching off from one base event, called Mr Nobody. But it differed in that it had a dozen different time-lines and outcomes, and having a very complicated narrative that jumped back and forth. But this was the first film that's sprung to mind when I watched Run Lola Run.

Other films similar in narrative organisation would be Blind Chance, a 1981 polish film directed by Krysztof Kieslowski which has the same 3 scenario setup. The spiral run of the woman down the stairs as she make her down from her apartment is reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcocks 1958 work in Vertigo. The film also seems to touch on the debate between free will and determinism. With all 3 scenarios playing out differently, the actions and events seeming to be out of the characters hands. But in first 2 scenarios, the woman and boyfriend refuse to die, and being the next scenario, which could show how their own will and love for eachother was strong enough to stop these events and give them another attempt to solve their problem. Another note I'd have to make about the film is the music used. Fast beating music helps add to the tension of the running scenes, aswell as improving the mood of the animated sequences, which are very simple and crude. But I think this adds to the films appeal in a way.

Heres a few examples of the animated sequences used in the film, mainly the opening credits, and the spiral staircase run. As you see the style is very simple and basic, but given the constant spiral movements and vivid colours, it isnt a big negative.

Sound Update 2#

I have been given a list of emails for 3^rd year sound students from the Northern Film School, whom we can contact to see if they would like to work on our projects, with the knowledge they would be credited for any of their work used In the final animation, aswell as be put in their own reel. I have contacted a dozen students, in the hopes atleast one will want to work on my project. I have sent 2 my animatic, and received 2 refusals. But I am still confident I will find atleast one student who will want to do the sound effects and foley.

Budget Update 1#

Here I have created a mock up of the first budget of my animation. I believed I had listed everything that was necessary to create my animation. But after some feedback, realised I had not grasped the full importance and detail needed in this. So I will need to add a new column for a 'guesstimation' of the cost of everything, aswell as the actual cost f everything, including the items already in my possession. I will also need to add things such as rent and accommodation costs, of where I will be living. Along with any space I would need to rent out for the production of this animation.

Writer and Script Update 2#

Its been a few weeks since I found out about the writer, and still have heard nothing about it...until today. I received an email from my writer claiming hes been kept in the dark about all this (sounds familiar) and its taken a while to track me down. Hes expressed still interest in working on the script for the animation, and wondering if we could meet up soon to discuss the project. I replied to his email, stating id be happy to meet up as soon as possible, and have been fiddling around with the script, and have a general idea for what I want in - dialogue wise – in the scenes.

Sound Update 1#

I have found a mutual relation who is willing to do the voice recording of the german officer shouting in the trench scene at the beginning of the film. I believe it will be a very good addition to my film, not only will the dialogue be in german, but voiced by someone raised in Germany and fluent in it as his first language. So there is no risk of it being spoken incorrectly. I did attempt a recording of my girlfriend for the part, since she is German and fluent in it, but found her voice to feminine no matter how deep she tried to make her voice, but the mutual relation I have through her (her brother) will work very well.

Here is the recording I attempted, as you can see, it is clear the speaker is a woman. Which would not be appropriate for the scene, as a female officer fighting in the trenches of WW1 is not exactly historically accurate. But this was a good experiment, as it led to me to write the dialogue necessary for the scenes needing it, and to me getting the male voice actor needed for it.

  

The Secret Of Kells

Today we watched the final animation film in the film theory lectures, The Secret of Kells, which has received countless awards and nominations since its release. The film is based on the origin of the manuscript gospel book, including the four gospels of the New Testament, named the Book of Kells. The book also draws upon Celtic mythology, namely the main antagonist of the film, the demon Crom Cruach. The name did seem Celtic, as its pronunciation seemed similar to that used in the welsh language. The battle between the boy and demon seemed similar to me as Beowulf and the Grendel's mother's battle. Mainly because of the lore and old European culture, in this case Celtic and Anglo Saxon, represented in both of these adaptations. The film was created with with the intent of it being similar to a Studio Ghibli film, in respect to their film's deep story, and meaning, but with Irish artwork and style. I believe the film pulls this off. The story itself may not seem amazing, but the artwork and style used creating the characters, backgrounds and scenes are beautifully done, and keeps you interested throughout.

Pre-Production - Second Animatic

For the second animatic I finally had flash on my home laptop to do it on, and so, with the same storyboard, and the feedback I received about the first draft from last week's session, I was able to create a much better and practical animatic. I drew straight into flash using my drawing tablet again, and focused more on getting the timing for it down right, as this was the animatic I may send to sound students if I decide to contact them about working on my film. I also worked it all on one scene, which looking back, may have been a bad decision as it’d be more complicated to make changes to, but not the end of the world.

I feel this animatic is much better than the first draft, the movements are much smoother, since I tweened on flash instead of each frame in movie maker, aswell as the timing of the scenes. Viewing it I can imagine in my mind the sounds that will play in the scenes and how it will improve the atmosphere and viewing experience of the animation. Although one or two moments do have some timing issues, its difficult to know exactly how long to make each scene without an outside perspective, as after working on it for hours, you know what happens in each scene, and start to think its dragging on and pausing at some moments too much. Another issue was the still present confusion the viewers were having about which people had the kitchener’s face, as I had not changed it from the previous animatics simple moustache, which doesn’t resemble the Kitchener’s There was no sound on this animatic either, but I have sorted out what sound effects, foley and dialogue I want to play in each scene. Overall I believe this 2^nd draft in a vast improvement on the previous one. The timing is effective and I’m able to work off this to create my final animation in production.

Drawing Session 5

Today marked the first day of our life modelling. Before the session I wasn’t too sure how I felt about it. It has been a while since the last time we did any modelling, so today was a chance to pick up where we left off, and get back into the groove of what we learned last year. Primarily, how to correctly measure the model onto our page, using our thumb to fit the head, measure out how many 'heads' were needed to fit the model, and marking it on the paper. Today was a beneficial day as it was the first time we had a female model, and not only that, but a few months pregnant. Having had all male models last year, we had become use to drawing the same basic shape for the body. Now we had new grooves and shading which needed to be taken note of when drawing. The lecture began fine, with the model taking short 15 minute poses sitting on the table. But then the model fainted, at which point we were not sure whether to continue drawing, or insist she stopped and went home. But she was a trooper, and continued to model from a chair until break time, at which point, thankfully she agreed to go home and rest.

At this point we took tuns to sit in the chair and be the model. Don’t get any ideas you. Clothes stayed ON for the entire session. Each student would model with the chair being rotated slightly each time, so on paper, we would have a 360 degree view of a model sitting in the chair. I believe it was a good reintroduction to life modelling, although Id argue to have the model be conscious at all times, and getting the blasted easels to stay upright in one position has become a bigger battle than I remember from last year. I look forward to doing more in the future weeks and getting use to sketching the human body again.

13 Tzameti

In today’s session we watched the Georgian thriller, 13 Tzameti. Tzameti being georgian for 13, a reference to the number of players taking part in the russian roulette game the film revolves around.

I enjoyed the film, and believe the lack of colour benefited the film, as you weren’t distracted by any vivid colours, and rather focused on the story, dialogue and facial expressions of the characters in pivotal moments. I’ve seen the 2010 Hollywood remake of this film, and was disappointed with it, as you cannot compare it to this. Although it didn’t have an exceptionally large budget, the main character being the directors actor, who was willing to do it for less pay, and filming in black and white lowering the cost even further, it is a quality thriller, which kept me on my tip toes throughout. Although I've seen the remake, and read about this film, I knew what the ending had in store, but this still did not prepare me for the main characters demise. I felt the same sadness and disappointment I felt the first time I discovered. Wishing he would have lived. But of course if it had, it would not have been such a compelling and interesting film. Sticking to the same linear ending as most films tend to have these days, would have been a shame.

Drawing Update 3#

Here it is! The final illustration I'll do towards the collaboration, until the end of the life modelling sessions:

I am very happy with this piece. Many man hours have gone into this, and I believe it has paid off. There is the same level of detail, if not more, in this piece than there is in the city at this time. The objects range in size from the hobbit house to the bee which cannot be even seen unless zoomed in. This project has most definitely improved my skill in creating illustrations of this manner. It may take countless hours, but its incredibly vivid, and appealing to view. You could look at this for a dozen times and still miss something out unless you scanned it completely Although I have definitely enjoyed this, I wont be coming back to creating another for a few weeks now, as the life modelling will need my attention, and it takes a few late nights to create something with
this level of detail.

Drawing Session 4

We've taken a step back from the city for now, to try and put some order on our glorious city. The aim of this session was creating a birds eye view of the city, for the project we have done. So, looking at the city, we attempted to create a working map of the city, taking into account the size and distance of the buildings from eachother, aswell as the roads and natural landmarks, such as rivers and mountains. We decided the best course of action for this was to create maps individually rather than collaborating on one as it might be confusing having so many different methods involved in creating one practical map. Therefore we went ahead with each student creating a map of their own, and at the end we would vote on the best map, which would be used in the collaboration. After each of us created a dozen, very different types of maps, we graded eachothers maps on a scale of 1-10, and whichever map had the highest overall score at the end, would be chosen. After going through the grading, my map had received the highest score, and so, would chosen to represent the city of....huh, no name...I’m guessing its time we gave it a name. After choosing the map, the time then came for us to give our city a name. Each student would think of 5 possible names for the city, with each student saying yes or no to each name. Coincidentally one of my names received the highest mark. So both the map and name for the city was contributed by me. Finally the great city of 'Coat Reddington' was becoming a reality!

The chosen map of Coat Reddington

Barefoot Gen

Barefoot Gen was the first animated film we watched, and Id been looking forward to this ever since seeing it on the list at the start of term. Its an adaptation of the manga of the same name by Keji Nakazawa, and some scenes were based on the authors own personal experience when the bomb was dropped. It follows the story of a small boy and his family, before during and after the nuclear bomb fell on Hiroshima on August 6^th, 1945. The movie begins as a typical anime film of the time. Very cheerful and happy, the sun shining and the wind blowing through the grass, along with some jump poses that would remind you of other anime of the time, such as Dragonball Z.

 But soon we are introduced to the first of many sad moments of the film. The mother is ill, and through the kindness of an elderly man, the two brothers are able to find their mother a fish for her to keep her strength up, a very rare food to find during rationing. After this the movies mood lightens, aside form the moments with the air raids, signs that the fateful event is getting closer, the single scout plane being the final hint that this will be the last day Hiroshima finds peace for a very long time. After the bomb hits, the mood of the film changes drastically. Were shown graphic examples of what the bomb does to the human body, and to the survivors. The boy's father, sister, and youngest brother, whom he was closest too, die when they become trapped under the rubble of their home and burn to death in the carnage. This is undoubtedly the films lowest point, the family dying, and radiation fallout taking a toll on the peoples health, shown vividly throughout the film. No matter how much you resist it, you grow affection towards the main character, and towards the end, where were shown proof of nature growing again, hinting back to what his father said at the beginning, you feel hope that the he, and his 'new' family will be ok.

Pre-Production - First Animatic

The pre production began with creating the first draft of the animatic. Since this was a first draft, it was more of a moving storyboard than a full on animatic, therefore I took the key scenes shown in the storyboard, and simply animated them a little, to give myself and the viewer a sense of what the scenes and movements would be like. I created the scenes on photoshop, and then put it together on movie maker, as Flash had expired on my laptop, and it was becoming an increasing difficult to get it corrected and still have enough time to create it, and so I begrudgingly accepted the fact I needed to use something already on my laptop, working correctly, to get the 1^st draft done by the next week. I wasn't too annoyed by the massive downgrade in quality and software as this first draft was only to get a feel of making my storyboard move, learning the benefits and uses for animatics in pre production. I also began creating the draft with the knowledge that no matter how the animatic would turn out, I would redo it on Flash once it was up and running, using the information and feedback I would receive from this first version.

With flash being down, and using photoshop and movie maker, I had to make each frame my self, and with the short amount of time, found the quality of the images were low, and the movements very sudden and difficult to follow. But the biggest problem with the first draft is the lack of timing. The timing in the animatic is not how I envision the final animation to be, and so it wasn’t very practical to work from. The animatic did not have any sound either, or very detailed characters, which the viewers found confusing to follow, as the transition from the crowds individuals faces into the kitchener’s face isn’t very obvious on the characters, aside from the presence of a very crude moustache, which is obvious to me, but not to others. But now that I have created my first ever animatic, I have a clearer idea of what not to do, and what they need to have.

Drawing Update 2#

Since the last time I updated the blog, I have created a new illustration, inspired by the work I’ve done on the collaboration:

As you can see, it is much larger than any of the previous illustrations I’ve done, aswell as having a whole new level of detail and use of colours. I wanted to create something big this time, as I felt the previous drawings were good, but far too small. Working on the city had gotten me interested in creating dozens of small little objects throughout the page to create one larger drawing, something I wanted to do here. I really like the work I did on this particular one. It gave me an opportunity to try something new, which I’ve turned out to enjoy, and practice for both the collaboration, and life model drawing, with the 2 demons in the background coming over the mountain. Of course the body's are a bit stretched and look like monsters. It allowed me a chance to get a feel for muscle definition on the forearms and chest, aswell as the shading involved on them. Overall, a very beneficial exercise that has given me both experience, aswell as an interesting and appealing illustration. Now was the time for me to create something bigger.

I was told that we would soon be stopping the work on the city to do some life modelling, and want to create something bigger. Atleast 4 times the size of this piece. We will see how it comes along.

Drawing Session 3

Today were doing something very interesting to the city. With some coins and scissors, were sanding down bits of charcoal to get the charcoal dust to fall spread over the pages, although this didn’t make much sense at the moment, and was a very annoying task to do on our knees, after covering each sheet fully, we used our rubbers to rub out the charcoal at different bits, to create different shades and tone on the pages. Again in the same process we did last time, passing the pages along after 15 minutes, we would use the rubber to improve the shading and definition of a certain area. I found the task very different to what we normally would do, and I’ve never had a strong liking for using charcoal, so using it here was not exactly what I would have liked to do. But we did use the rubber to do it, instead of using the charcoal in hand, so it was easier than It seemed at first. I'm glad we did this to the city, as it really did improve the city, and made it look alive. Although it did highlight some of the problems our city had, for example the presence of 3 suns, a dozen city halls, a giant bunny and the BFG attacking the city. But these somehow add to the city’s feel. After finishing, it was time to spray the sheets to keep the charcoal intact. Because of the spray and our lack of masks, we stuck the sheets up on the walls, and in turns went into the room and sprayed every page. After this we took them back to the animation room, and stuck them back on the wall in their order to gaze at it. We all celebrated how successful the city now looked. It reminded me of the city the 2^nd year had done last year, of course since I worked on this, I'm going to say its even better than theirs. The city in its entirety looks incredible well done, as if double the actual amount of time was taken to create it. But if you were to look at individual objects on the pages, you’d see they aren’t very well done, but because of the sheer amount on the sheets, and the charcoal shading, it looks great.

Writer and Script Update 1#

I discovered today that I actually have been allocated a writer for my animation, after stumbling across a form on the wall in the film school that says there is a writer working on my project. I have not been told by any of the staff about this, nor did my tutors have any knowledge on the matter, but I was assured they would find out what was happening, and would be put into contact with our writers soon. I have tried to find my writer online, but it has not turned up any answers. Probably because his last name might be spelt wrong, as is my first name on the form – Irwan Lewis. This doesn’t fill me with hope that his name is accurate. But we will see what happens. I’m not entirely pleased that I will be working with a writer, more so because I wasn’t even asked or told. Leaving me to find out through some kind of confusing easter egg hunt. But this is the first time I will be working with someone on an animation, so would like to experience this new way of working. Hopefully it will end up creating a quality animation.

Něco z Alenky (Alice)

As I expected, I did not enjoy this film. Aside from the animation of animals, which were very smooth and realistic, I disliked everything about this piece. If I were asked, what other export from Sweden it resembled most, it would have to be an Ikea coffee table. Confusing to piece together, and low quality, in my opinion.

For the benefit of not turning into the hulk while writing this, I will focus on the positives I have about the film. The stop motion for the rabbit is exceptionally well done. Considering also the fact its been implemented into a live action film, the animation work on the toys and rabbit must be commended. The stop motion involving the girl isn’t incredible, but considering the budget the film had to work on, and the fact this film was made in 1988, it can be forgiven. What cannot be forgiven is the sound effects and foley. I felt like my ears were going to bleed at parts due to the terrible choice of sound. I had to put earphones in half way through because the sound of the plates crashing was just too loud. The dialogue aswell, although very rare, was terribly timed. I’m aware that the film is originally in swedish, but when dubbing the film, I feel like they were high when pacing and dropping in the dialogue. It was off time with the child speaking, and felt like I was watching an 80's martial arts movie.

Něco z Alenky (Alice) Trailer

The film is meant to be dream like state. An illusion imagined by the small girl. But from the look of the rabbit and other toys, it would appear to be more of a nightmare. Overall, not my cup of tea. I liked the stop motion movements of the toys and rabbit. But any attempt to enjoy this was destroyed by the sound issues. I can assure you I will not be viewing this film again.

Client Response

I received the email from the client...APPROVED! My pitch has been green-lit, and now I have been chosen along with 2 of my fellow animating students to produce an animation to hand in and exhibit at the end of the semester. The email did not provide much more information than had already been said at the pitch. They enjoyed my idea and designs, explained the new alterations they were looking for, and again noted it wasn’t a necessity for me to make the alterations of using modern technology. There was no word on the final animations size or format, nor any word on the size of the budget or when we would get it. Ill admit that although before I said it’d be a strain being one chosen as I would have to follow the clients need, or worse be stuck with a writer or producer. But being green-lit has given me a small amount of satisfaction, knowing my pitch was chosen over dozens of groups of film students. Also there is no inclination in the email I will be given a writer or producer, which gives me relief. Now I begin the adventure of pre-production.